Emergency or siege coins are those minted by local authorities outside the state’s legal tender system, generally in extraordinary situations such as sieges, wars or economic crises that create a shortage of regular currency. Their purpose is to allow transactions to continue for as long as the emergency lasts.

In Chile, the first issue of this kind took place in 1859, during the Copiapó uprising against the government of Manuel Montt, led by the radical Pedro León Gallo and known as the Constitutional Revolution. In that context, 50-centavo and 1-peso coins were minted, the latter popularly known as the Peso Gallo. They were made of silver of higher fineness than the Republic’s official coins, a feature intended to symbolise Copiapó’s economic strength in relation to the rest of the country. After the victory of the central government, these coins were declared illegal, many were melted down, and their circulation was banned.

A few years later, during the Spanish-South American War (1865-1866), the blockade of the port of Caldera by the Spanish fleet interrupted the flow of money and supplies to Copiapó. Facing this situation, the city once again minted emergency coinage, again in denominations of 50 centavos and 1 peso, with a crude, simple design that could be produced quickly and used to facilitate local trade while the blockade lasted.

A singular case in Chilean monetary history is that of the Kingdom of Araucanía and Patagonia. In 1860, the French adventurer Orélie Antoine de Tounens arrived in what is now the Araucanía Region and proclaimed the creation of this short-lived state, with the support of some local Mapuche leaders, or loncos. After proclaiming himself monarch and establishing the capital at Perquenco, he issued passports, promulgated a constitution and attempted to establish diplomatic relations with other monarchies. Expelled by the Chilean government in 1862, he continued to claim his throne from abroad and, in 1874, ordered the minting of his own currency. Today, these pieces are among the rarest in Chilean numismatic history.

At other moments in Chilean history, emergency coinage was also used. This happened, for example, during the Chilean siege of the then Spanish island of Chiloé (1818-1826), in the context of the War of Independence, and later during the Civil War of 1891, when the congressional faction minted the so-called Peso Tarapacá in Iquique to sustain monetary circulation in the territories under its control.